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Dr. David Boocker

The Department of English & Journalism: Shape of Things to Come

Revised English Major It’s taken about two and a half years, but with much persistence, the English program expects to have its revised major in place by fall 2007. The new major, we believe, better reflects the 21st century English department. The current curriculum, defensible though it may be, has become problematic because what it aims to do is provide students with a “coverage model.” This model claims to give students a broad range of courses in British and American literature, but in the end, students end up with only a sampling of literature in these areas. Moreover, the current model fails to take into account the dynamic changes that have taken place in English students in recent years—changes that make the new English major more reflective of cultural diversity and social justice. Historically, studying English has meant focusing on the national traditions of British and American literature. But as Professor David Banash (the mastermind behind the new curriculum) wrote in defense of our new major, “literatures in English from around the world have become far more important to the discipline, rivaling British and American traditions.” Fields such as “postcolonial studies and the growing importance of marginalized literatures” are “moving

the field of English studies toward the articulation of ethical questions and the consideration of literature (and literary modes of analysis) as a force in the politics of everyday life.” What shape does the new major take? Upper-division electives will be offered in four categories: Forms (courses which will focus on formal aspects of literature and film); Traditions (courses which will focus on courses currently found in British and American literature); Social Justice (courses which will focus on ethnic, postcolonial, marginalized, and non-western literature and film); and Language and Theory (courses which will focus on literary and film theory and language/linguistics). Mounting the new major will require the creation of fifteen new courses, as well as various changes to some twenty of our existing courses. In many ways, we hope and expect that our new major will be more intellectually challenging, and that our new requirements will better serve the varied goals that students bring to our major. Students will have twelve directed elective hours at the 300/400 level. Students most interested in national traditions may well choose to immerse themselves in those courses. However, many of our students go on to careers where courses in language, theory, and forms would better serve their needs as they make careers as technical writers, editors, publicists, managers, among many others. Interdisciplinary Minor in Film Studies In addition to a newly revised English major, the department will also begin offering an interdisciplinary minor in Film Studies in fall 2007. Students will be able to take film courses in the departments of English, Broadcasting, African American Studies, Foreign Language, Political Science, Women’s Studies, and Theater. Interested students should talk to Dr. Roberta Di Carmine, our new specialist in Film Studies. Searches This year we will conduct five searches (three in English, two in Journalism). Retiring this year are Tom Joswick, Dan Colvin, Jay Balderson, and Hallie Lemon. And for the first time, the department will have a full-time teaching faculty member whose primary responsibilities will be teaching to support our programs in the Quad Cities.

These and other developments in the department reflect an interesting dynamism, as well as the fact that the Department of English & Journalism is evolving in ways that reflect our importance to the overall mission of this fine University.

ENGLISH and JOURNALISMWESTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES SPRING 2006

From the Chair’s Desk

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Spring 2007 Registration Yes, it’s that time again…time to register for your spring classes! If you have not yet made your advising appointment for this semester, call 298-2189 or stop by Simpkins 130 to set up your appointment. Reminder: Schedule books will no longer be printed. Spring 2007 schedules are available on-line through STARS. If you have already met with Ellen this semester but have trouble getting registered due to closed classes, time conflicts, etc., please feel free to stop by the advising office for assistance with these problems any time.

Fall 2006 Departmental Scholars Each semester, the Department of English and

Journalism selects two students as “Departmental Scholars.” These students must be December 2006 graduates with a cumulative GPA of 3.30 or higher. Campus and community involvement is also taken into account in the selection process. We are pleased to announce our Scholars for Fall 2006.

Congratulations to this semester’s winners, Jessica Mason-McFadden, our departmental scholar for English, and Amber Chibucos, our Journalism scholar! The department is proud of your accomplishments! Jessica and Amber will be recognized at the Honors Convocation December 15. 2006 WINNERS! Cordell Larner Award in Fiction or Poetry 1st Place: Kent Corbin, Up North, In Hayward, fiction 1st Place: Jessica Mason McFadden, Reading Artvoice before an Eight O’clock Performance of A.R. Gurney’s The Cocktail Hour and other poems 2nd Place: Emily Coutre, Hypothesis and other poems 2nd Place: Noelle Ebert, Method Acting, fiction 3rd Place: Amanda Doyle, Cross-Stitch and other poems Lois C Bruner Literary Nonfiction Award 1st Place: Kent Corbin, Arguments for Staying 2nd Place: Michael Perillo, Fiction: A Nonfiction 3rd Place: Jeremy Zentner, The Only Cool Place to Be Honorable Mention: Matthew Muilenburg, Snuggles’ Revenge Honorable Mention: Carlos Richmond, Bucket Course Descriptions Spring 2007 English and Journalism course descriptions will be available on-line. Check them out to get more information about each class, such as detailed content descriptions, required texts, number of papers and exams, etc. Descriptions will be available at www.wiu.edu/english by the end of October.

Advising

Dates to Remember: Advance Registration for Spring 2007. . . . . . .Nov. 1-17 Fall Break – NO CLASSES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nov. 20-24 Classes Resume. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nov. 27 Last Day to Withdraw from University. . . . . . . . . Dec. 8 Final Exam Week. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 11-15 Graduate Commencement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 15 Honors Convocation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 15 Undergraduate Commencement. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 16 Winter Break. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 18-Jan. 15 Spring Semester Begins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 16

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Scholarship Winners for 2006-2007 The English and Journalism Department proudly recognized several academic scholarship & award winners at our Award’s Ceremony last spring. Congratulations to all of our winners! Scholarship Winner Paul Blackford Sarah Cash & Darlene Roberts John Castle Michelle Falco Olive Fite Annette Glotfelty Irving Garwood Catherine Lenhardt Lila S. Linder Jennifer Kallenbach & Kevin White Alfred Lindsey Jessica Mason-McFadden John Merrett Tina West Beth M. Stiffler Jennifer Kallenbach Nai-Tung Ting Aaron Collie Wanninger David King Bill Bradshaw Geoff Rands

Scholar of the Year Kevin White

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Fall 2006 Commencement Schedule Friday, December 15 3:00 p.m. -- Honors Convocation, Western Hall 5:00 p.m. -- ROTC Commissioning Ceremony, Heritage Rooms Saturday, December 16 9:30 a.m. - Undergraduate Ceremony #1 Board of Trustees/Bachelor of Arts, Interdisciplinary Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, and College of Business and Technology 1:00 p.m. - Undergraduate Ceremony #2 College of Education and Human Services and College of Fine Arts and Communication Brown County Girls

You may have noticed an odd trend in the advising office this semester. When Jenny Kallenbach began working as a receptionist in the office in the fall of 2004, little did we know that a year later, her twin sisters Amy and Rachel would join her on the WIU campus. Amy joined us in the office last fall, and then Rachel decided to join their ranks this year. Yes, all three of the Kallenbach sisters are now here in the English and Journalism Advising Office! Stranger still, in September along came another one of our fantastic English majors, Jami

Babb, to join the staff. No, she is not related to the Kallenbach sisters, BUT she is from their hometown of Mt. Sterling, and all four went to school together. Seriously…I can’t make this stuff up!

From left to right: Amy, Jenny, Jami, and Rachel NCTE

WIU’s National Council of Teachers of English student affiliate has begun the year with over twenty-five members. The organization’s officers (Jessica Makler, Christy Myers, Kayleigh Kushner, and Jenny Kallenbach) have been working with faculty advisor Janna Haworth since the beginning of the semester to provide relevant activities and meeting topics for all of the members. Thus far, the organization has had three meetings and has made many plans for the duration of the semester. Mr. Martin Kral from Career Services served as the guest speaker at a meeting on October 18. In addition, the semi-annual NCTE book sale took place on October 24 and 25. NCTE would like to thank anyone who participated in this fundraiser through the donation or purchase of books. Your contributions help fund the yearly trip to the national NCTE convention. Dr. Boocker and the English and Journalism Department also provide a significant amount of financial support for this trip. This year, Dr. Bonnie Sonnek and Dr. Joan Livingston-Webber will take eight students to the convention in Nashville, Tenn, November 16-19. While at the convention, these students will have the opportunity to listen to speakers and attend workshops relating to current issues in the field of teaching English.

The 2006-07 NCTE officers are (from left to right)

Kayleigh Kluesner (NCTE Secretary), Christy Myers (NCTE Treasurer), Jessica Makler (NCTE Vice-President), and Jenny Kallenbach (NCTE President).

Student News

Academic Assistance Centers Academic Services offers monitored study

groups and tutoring in many subject areas. Did you receive an early warning grade in one of your general education courses? It’s not too late to bring those grades up this semester! Please seek this FREE assistance if you need it. Tutoring is available in the following areas: ACCT 201 & 202 ANTH 110 & 111 ART 180 & MORE BIOL 100, 102, 103 & MORE CHEM 100, 101, 150 & 201 CS 101 & MORE ECON 100, 231 & 232 FCS 109 & 121 GEOG 100 & 110 GEOL 110, 112, 113 & 115 HE 120, 121, 123 & 250 HIST 105, 106, 125, 126 & MORE MATH 099, 100, 101, 102, 123 & MORE MUS 181, 190, 195, 196 & MORE PHIL 105 & 120 PHYS 100, 101, 114, 124 & 197 POLS 101, 122, 228, 267, 300 & MORE PSY 100, 221, 223, 250, 251 & MORE REL 101 & 201 SOC 100 STAT 171

If a course is not listed, help may still be available. For more information, contact Academic Services in Olson Hall 248 (298-1871).

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PRSSA PRSSA started the fall semester with its first meeting on Wednesday, September 6, 2006. Meetings are held each Wednesday at 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. in Simpkins Room 120. So far, 14 new members have paid their dues. PRSSA is conducting a public relations campaign for the Bliss Boutique this semester. Dr. Ming-Yi-Wu was the guest speaker on September 27. Six PRSSA members along with Dr. Siddiqi are going to Salt Lake City, Utah, to attend the PRSSA International Convention, November 11-14, 2006. Members have also planned a number of fund-raising events this semester. For more information, contact PRSSA president Tiffany Zack at TM-Zack@wiu.edu or Dr. Siddiqi at m-siddiqi@wiu.edu. WSPJ

The Western Society of Professional Journalists is planning a Fall banquet with a speaker. Meetings earlier this semester included a seminar on resumes, clips, internships and job interviews featuring Western Courier adviser Rich Moreno and WSPJ adviser Bill Knight. ALUMNI NOTES Brent Robinson

Brent Robinson, a WIU English Master’s graduate, has accepted a tenure-track, assistant professor position at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa. He is currently teaching written communication and speech to non-traditional students. Aaron Bliese

Aaron Bliese, a fall 2005 graduate with a creative writing minor, is studying fiction writing in the prestigious MFA program at Columbia University in New York City. Columbia is regarded as one of the top three MFA programs in the nation. The Maurine Magliocco Lecture English Departments in an Age of Accountability

(from left to right) Linda Ray Pratt Dave Boocker Maurine Magliocco

Dr. Linda Ray Pratt, interim Executive Vice President and Provost at the

University of Nebraska-Lincoln, delivered the 2006 Magliocco Lecture on Thursday, October 26 in the WIU Art Gallery. In her talk, “English Departments in an Age of Accountability,” Dr. Pratt discussed the future of English departments and higher education in the context of such things as greater accountability being required by states and the federal government, and decreases in state funding that have

led many institutions to pass these decreases along to students in the form of dramatic increases in tuition and fees. Dr. Pratt focused on the recently released Spellings Report, which calls for, among other things, a national exit exam for all college and university students, the results of which would be made public. Dr. Pratt’s lecture left everyone in attendance with much to think about.

The lecture was funded by a generous gift given from Dr. Maurine Magliocco, who taught in the Department of English & Journalism for 37 years and retired in 2004. Thanks, Maurine!

The Fred Case & Lola Austin Case Writer-in-Residence

Helen Humphreys Novelist and Poet

Reading

Tuesday, October 31, 2006 7:00 p.m.

WIU Art Gallery

Craft Talk Thursday, November 2, 2006

4:30 – 5:30 p.m. 341 Simpkins Hall

These events are free & open to the public.

Novels Poetry Wild Dogs Anthem The Lost Garden The Perils of Geography Afterimage Gods and Other Mortals Leaving Earth Nuns Looking Anxious Listening to Radios

Books are available for sale at the Western Illinois University Bookstore

Special Events

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Sustainability Brown Baggers Conversations for the Natural and Social Sciences and the Arts and Humanities Tuesdays from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

10/31/06 Bonnie Sonnek

English and Journalism Environmental Racism: The Political Economy and the Rise

of the Environmental Justice Stipes 501

11/7/06

Cindy Struthers Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs

Housing and Community Sustainability Stipes 501

11/14/06

Chris Sutton Geography

Mapping and Community Vision Tillman 301D

For more information, contact Timothy Collins,

Assistant Director of Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs, at 309-298-3412 or t-collins@wiu.edu. Check out our website at www.iira.org. In cooperation with the WIU Department of Geography, the Institute for Environmental Studies, and Center for Innovation in Teaching and Research.

Download a Printer Friendly copy of the schedule at: http://mvs.wiu.edu/jes2mail/BrownBaggers.pdf Fall 2006 Journalism Day October 30, 2006 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Capitol Room and Sandburg Theatre in the University Union Events include High School newspaper critique and a panel discussion featuring guest speakers, Roland Klose from the Illinois Times newspaper in Springfield, Rajah Maples from KHQA TV Channel-7, Quincy, and Herb Trix from WKIV radio in the Quad Cities. They will be speaking on the topic: “Audiences who don’t read print anymore: new news in a climate of change.” Journalism Day is sponsored by Western’s Society of Professional Journalists (W-SPJ), the Department of English and Journalism and the College of Arts and Sciences.

2007 Creative Writing Festival The Western Illinois University Department of

English and Journalism is pleased to announce the 2007 Creative Writing Festival to be held on Monday, April 23. This year's festival will celebrate not only creative writing but also Shakespeare's birthday.

The festival is designed to encourage and recognize student writers, to introduce students and faculty to an exemplary writer, to offer students an opportunity to visit a university campus as well as explore career opportunities in English and Journalism, and to foster collegial relationships between high school and university faculty.

Students may choose to attend sessions including creative writing activities; peer-sharing workshops; and non-fiction, journalism, and film activities. Students may also choose to meet with the visiting writer or to attend a typical college course. Visiting teachers have the opportunity to meet with the featured writer and attend a teacher workshop.

The featured writer, Grace Tiffany, is a Renaissance scholar who has published numerous scholarly articles and two books on Renaissance literature, as well as four historical novels based on Shakespeare’s life or plays.

The culmination of the day is the Garrison Creative Writing Awards Ceremony. Winners will receive plaques and cash prizes and will hear portions of their winning entries read on stage by university faculty. The annual Creative Writing Festival is sponsored by the Department of English and Journalism and the College of Arts and Sciences. RETIREMENTS Hallie Lemon

When I discovered I had only two days to write a retirement tribute for Hallie Lemon, I worried that I would be unable to do justice to her many significant contributions to the University and the department over the past twenty-four years. But, as I began to collect data and interview her colleagues, I realized that if I had six months to write this piece I still could not fully document all she has done for WIU, her colleagues and, most important of all, her students during her teaching career here. All I can do is give you the facts and let them speak for themselves.

Hallie, who received her BA from Monmouth College and her MA from the University of Illinois, began teaching in the Writing Program at WIU in the Fall of 1983. Although her classroom focus has been both English 100 and English 280 for most of her career, the basic writing course has been her special interest. For the past seven years, she has expanded that interest to include serving as coordinator of that course and being responsible for the orientation and training of new faculty teaching Eng 100 for the first time. In that capacity, she has conducted two major assessment analyses,

Faculty News

Sponsored Events for High School Students

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surveyed teachers and students regarding placement procedures, and helped to establish the annual Bruce Leland Essay Contest. During that time, she has remained dedicated to her students; with Hallie, her students always came first. For example, only once in the nine years that I have been Director has she failed to return student papers the class after they were submitted. As fellow instructor Jacque Wilson-Jordan put it, “No one cares more for Western and its students.”

Instructors are evaluated only on teaching, not on service and professional activities. But Hallie is a committed professional who has fully participated in the university and the academy on all levels. Professionally, she has attended the CCCC’s, the national conference for college writing teachers, 17 of the past 19 years, and she either presented a paper or chaired a session every one of those 17 years. She, in collaboration with Maurine Magliocco and me, co-chaired the annual Feminist Workshop at the CCCC’s in Chicago in 2002 and again chaired that same workshop last year in 2006.

Her publications are equally impressive, but I want to discuss only one, her personal favorite- “Teachers’ Stories: Personal Pedagogical History,” published in the Illinois English Bulletin in 1992. This was an article based on an interview she conducted with her mother, an English teacher in the 1930s and ‘40s. In it, she compared teaching methods from that time period with contemporary pedagogies. As Hallie later said, “It was fascinating to see the differences in teaching styles, and the interview and the article gave me a new respect for my mother as a professional.”

Service to the department, the College and the University has always been a part of Hallie’s career at WIU. Her list of committees is far too long to reproduce here, but I will mention a few of the most significant. She served on one Dean’s search committee and co-chaired the last department’s chair search committee. She has chaired the department’s Writing Committee and served on the Department Council and the Faculty Associate Committee, to name a few. But her service doesn’t end there.

In a more unofficial capacity Hallie has always encouraged her fellow instructors in professional development and activities. A number of instructors told me that their first conference participation was as a result of Hallie’s offering to include them on a proposal she was making for a future panel. I know that she is personally responsible for getting me involved in the Feminist Workshop at the CCCC’s and in the International Feminists and Composition Conference. Our senior instructor, Randy Smith, expressed Hallie’s commitment to her colleagues in a small anecdote that he recently related to me:

“Just the other day, I thanked her for putting the yellow chalk in room 114. The students can see it so much better than the bright white.” Now that may seem a little thing, and in a way it is, but it is the thoughtful, personal “little things” like this that symbolize all the big things Hallie has unselfishly contributed to the Writing Program these past two decades. As Randy put it, “She is the best possible role model for a writing instructor professional.”

Joan Livingston-Webber seconded this appraisal. “Hallie has been a great colleague in the Writing Program since I arrived in 1988. Her work on collaboration is known well beyond campus, and her work on concerns of writing

faculty has brought positive attention to WIU from across the country. I will miss her, as will the profession.”

I second that sentiment. I too have great respect for her, personally and professionally. Who else will lend me her completed travel voucher to reproduce for the Travel Committee so that I won’t have to do math? Who else will remind me that I need to get my proposal in on time? And who else will remember the title of my next presentation when I have lost my proposal form? Seriously, Hallie is the consummate professional, and a good friend as well. The Writing Program and the Department of English and Journalism is saying good-bye to a very special colleague. I, for one, shall miss her very much.

…Alice Robertson Tom Joswick

When Tom Joswick arrived as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English in the fall of 1972, Simpkins Hall was a wild and wooly place. We were just two years away from the student takeover of Simpkins in 1970 and the occupation of the roof of the building by Vietnam War protesters. We shared the building with R.O.T.C., and you could easily find a sometimes unlocked cabinet of M-16s back where the Recital Hall now stands. We were big then—80 faculty members, 14,500 students, and American survey classes with 50 or 60 kids. Tom was a Danforth Fellow at the State University of New York at Buffalo, one of their star students. That place was on fire with the hot new French theorists, and easily one of the powerful graduate centers then reshaping the field. He was said to be writing a thesis on Herman Melville and William Carlos Williams, and he held forth at parties on esoteric theory loudly and hilariously until late in the night. Kate and Tom’s parties on West Chase Street soon became legendary. There was always a card game, which Kate usually won. At about 5 in the morning Tom would demand everybody go out for breakfast, and off we’d go. How did we ever drive? Everybody smoked, everybody yelled loud. We were all about 25 years old. The important place to be in those days was on the ground floor of Simpkins. Tom shared an office with Dan Colvin, and they always invited people to stop by on Friday afternoons. The first time I went, I noticed a small refrigerator in the corner, astoundingly holding a bottle of Johnny Walker Black. This theme mushroomed. By 1976, when George Kurman held an outdoor party at his house on North Normal Street to celebrate the end of his youth with 12 cases of champagne, we interrupted a Department Senate meeting (we had a huge governance structure then) and trouped up the street for several hours. I remember bringing a large peanut butter jar full of champagne back to the meeting with me.

We called students Mr. and Ms. at that time. The men wore neckties and sometimes coats and the women wore dresses. It was oddly formal. Tom soon established a reputation for especial brilliance and rigor. American Lit. was his passion. We worked a lot. We endured quarters then and we taught nine courses per year. There was no union contract. Tom spent the first year finishing his thesis and soon began publishing. He also established a pattern which was to mark his last fifteen years as one of our chief citizens: serving the department, college, and university in exemplary ways. (It’s hard to remember everything he has done for us. Here are a few: chair of most every department committee, serving as

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department Honors Advisor, an interviewer at MLA, Chair of the Faculty Senate, and, in his finest hour, chairing the search committee that snared Al Goldfarb as President.) Sometime in the 80s, I think, he took over the Editorship of Essays in Literature, with an editorial acumen that made it an important scholarly journal. His book series is still selling books and making money; among other things, the EL books finance the publication of Elements. His published work focused on Herman Melville at first—Typee,”Bartleby the Scrivener,” The Confidence-Man. There were also excursions into the poetry of William Carlos Williams, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Perhaps his most elegant and rewarding work came later, a series of essays on Edgar Allan Poe. I remember his article on the doubling impulses in “William Wilson,” which Tom saw in profound relation to Paul’s troubling question in Romans, “Who will save me from this body of death?”

Recently, he won a $500 prize from Isotope magazine for a series of poems in the voice of John James Audobon. These poems testify to another of the powerful interests Tom carved out in his life: birds. He has a collection of rare 19th century bird prints, participates in the annual McDonough County bird count, and has integrated Audobon into his courses on 19th century American art and literary culture. Tom has of course taught a great many other things. Honors students particularly remember his Freshman Honors seminars in law and literature. He shines there. He has the finest mind for literary study I have ever encountered. His classes are also fun. Right now, for example, I have posted on my bulletin board a copy of a rare painting of Queequeg Tom discovered and gave to his American Fiction class. Those who know Tom also know that he is a skilled raconteur. So many stories remain with me from these years. One in particular involved a failed hernia operation that resulted in a hideous swelling of a particular body part. Or the one about a famous Buffalo professor, who was heard making a huge racket in his office late one night. Tom and another student broke in to find him taking an axe to his university typewriter. “I finished the sucker,” he remarked, meaning his latest book. Tom often punctuates his stories with curious phrases, like “Aw, g’wan,” or “oh for crying out loud!” These turn out to be Minnesota-isms. Tom grew up in Minnesota, which explains a lot. One fall semester at St. Mary’s he pitched a tent on the College green and spent the whole winter living there. He was reading Thoreau at the time, but that isn’t the full story. I don’t think Tom ever completely adjusted to Illinois. He always complains that there is not enough snow here. (For those interested in Minnesota speech patterns, visit Tom on the third floor or consult the movie “Fargo.”) He was a star football player on both sides of the line in high school in Winona. He once received a letter from Senator Hubert Humphrey admitting him to the United States Naval Academy. This was odd, since Tom had applied to the Air Force Academy and couldn’t swim a single stroke. He spent four months with the Jesuits. Tom, by the way, is a superb athlete. He took it into his mind a few years ago to teach himself tennis. He worked in front of the mirror, read all the books, and practiced until he became the star of the play-during-class tennis bums out on Simpkins courts. See Nancy Krey for more information on this.

I’ve got to spend another year here after Tom leaves, and I feel a bit naked in my area (Jay Balderson is leaving, too). Also I feel we are losing our best professor, our finest mind, and our most intelligent practitioner of faculty governance. After Tom leaves, who will post the “Poem of the Week” outside the office door? Who will enforce the “Joswick Rule” at faculty meetings? Who will defend The Adventures of Tom Sawyer against the assaults of the philistines? Who will praise and encourage my work like his own? Generations of grateful students, perhaps, will be his best legacy. I wish Tom and Kate well in their much-deserved retirement. They have three beautiful grandchildren to occupy their time. And who knows—a villa in Italy?

….John Mann WELCOME NEW FACULTY Roberta Di Carmine

Before coming to the United States, Roberta Di Carmine received a “Laurea” (Master’s Degree) cum laude in English literature from the University of Pescara (Italy). In 1996, she received a Master’s Degree in Foreign Languages and Literatures from West Virginia University and then moved to Oregon where in 2004 she received a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature (specializing in Film

Studies) from the University of Oregon. In 2003, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Italian at Dickinson College (Pennsylvania) and in 2004 she became a Visiting Assistant Professor in Italian literature and film in the department of Modern Languages at the University of Oklahoma. From 2005 to 2006, she had a joint appointment as Lecturer in Italian and Film in the Departments of Modern Languages and Film and Video Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Since Fall 2006, she has been teaching as Assistant Professor of Film in the Department of English and Journalism at Western Illinois University.

Throughout the years, she has taught a wide range of courses, from Italian Cinema and Comparative Literature to Introduction to Film and Video Studies, Film Criticism, Film History, World Cinema and Italian American Cinema. In 2004, she published an article “Italophone writing and the intellectual space of creativity. Shirin Ramzanali Fazel and Lontano da Mogadiscio” in the refereed journal Quaderni del ‘900 (Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali, Italy). Lisa Kernek

Lisa Kernek began teaching reporting classes at WIU in fall 2006 after working for 17 years as a reporter. She began her career working at small newspapers in Massachusetts and later returned to her home state of Illinois where she spent 12 years reporting for The State Journal-Register in Springfield. In Springfield she covered a series of

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different beats, including city hall and schools. She has a bachelor’s in history and a master’s in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Rich Moreno

Among the new faces in Simpkins Hall this year is Rich Moreno, who was hired during the summer as Director of Student Publications. So, after a year without one, the students who put out the Western Courier newspaper have a full-time advisor again. The job description also includes teaching one course per semester for the Journalism Program, so Rich

will become familiar to most of us before too long. He and his family moved here from Reno, Nevada, where he was the publisher of the state-owned Nevada Magazine for 14 years and taught part-time at the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. Prior to that, he worked as Director of Advertising and Public Relations for the Nevada Commission on Tourism for seven years and as a newspaper reporter for the Reno Gazette-Journal for several years. This semester, Rich is teaching one section of our Intro to Mass Communication course. In upcoming semesters, he'll handle Reviewing and Criticism and the Magazine & Feature Writing courses. Amy Patrick

Amy M. Patrick received her doctorate in Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She also holds an M.A. in Literature and Environment from the University of Nevada, Reno and a B.S. from the Univeristy of Massachusetts, Amherst in Geology and Earth Systems. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of English and

Journalism at Western Illinois University, where she teaches composition, professional writing, and environmental courses, and is involved with the Institute for Environmental Studies. Her research interests include the rhetoric of sustainability and environmental discourse, particularly issues concerning environmental and human health. Her dissertation examined the tradition of apocalyptic and precautionary writing in environmental literature. Scott Sievers

Scott Sievers is teaching Journalism 417G (Law of Mass Communications). Scott has his JD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, as well as an MA in Public Affairs Reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield. He has worked as a reporter at several newspapers, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The News-Gazette (Champaign). He currently serves as Assistant Attorney General in the Springfield office of Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan.

FACULTY RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT Tama Baldwin

Tama Baldwin’s chapbook of poems, Garden, was published in August by Finishing Line Press. Garden, which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, is available on Amazon. Tama also has poems out this fall in Heliotrope and Poetry International. Five of her short lyrical prose pieces responding to paintings by Noah Saterstrom appeared as part of an art installation entitled Memory [Memory]. The show opened in Glasgow, Scotland in September, 2006. David Boocker

David Boocker published “Milton after 9/11” in Milton in Popular Culture (Palgrave, 2006). The piece assesses the function of numerous references to Milton, especially of Milton’s Satan, in major newspapers and magazines after 9/11. Mark Butzow Mark Butzow reviewed a manuscript titled "Inside Reporting: A Practical Guide to the Craft of Journalism" for McGraw-Hill publishing company.

In April, he discussed small-market journalism convergence as part of a panel at the Broadcast Education Association national convention in Las Vegas.

In September, Butzow conducted a workshop on ethics for the Illinois Community College Journalism Association fall conference at EIU in Charleston. Dan Colvin Dan Colvin received the Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching for 2006. Congratulations Dan!!! Jim Courter

Jim Courter had a short story published in the summer 2006 edition of JMWW, an online journal. The narrative of his first son’s birth was among those featured in a pre-Father’s Day issue of the Peoria Journal Star in June. He has a short story forthcoming in the November-December 2006 issue of Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine. Bill Knight In September, Bill Knight conducted a workshop on reviewing and arts journalism at the Fall Conference of the Illinois Community College Journalism Association at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. Knight is also finishing an anthology of writings by former WIU student Rick Johnson, a prominent rock critic who died unexpectedly last spring. John Mann

John Mann has published poems recently in The Literary Review. They are forthcoming in Vallum and Confrontation.

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Shazia Rahman Shazia Rahman will present her paper “Mukherjee in Canada: A Resistant Ethnic" at the 35th Annual Conference on South Asia in Madison, Wisconsin (October 19-22, 2006). Alice Robertson Alice Robertson published an article on William Faulkner's work titled "The Ultimate Voyeur: The Communal Narrator of 'A Rose for Emily'" in the Spring 2006 issue of Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction. Teri Simmons

Terri Simmons will present a 2-hour workshop entitled "Feeding the Beast: Image Management and Crisis Planning for Technology Companies" for Cryotech Corporation and its affiliates on November 14, 2006. Mohammad Siddiqi

Mohammad Siddiqi published "What Do we Want the Other to Teach about the Islamic Ethical Traditions?" in What Do We Want the Other to Teach About Us. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Dialogues, Sacred Heart University Press, Fairfield, Connecticut. He presented a paper, "An Analysis of the Current Debate on Islam Between Radical and Moderate Muslims," at the 25th International Conference of the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) held in Cairo, Egypt. He also chaired two sessions at the conference. Mohammad was elected to the IAMCR's governing body and also as chair of the Islam and Media Working group for 2006 - 2008. Mohammad delivered a lecture on "The growing media bias and increasing hatred against Muslims in America," at the Jamaica Muslim Center in New York. Pearlie Strother-Adams Assoc. Prof. Pearlie Strother-Adams received a prestigious ASNE Fellowship. An American Society of Newspaper Editors' (ASNE) Fellowship, through the "2006 ASNE Institute Journalism for Excellence for Educators Award, made it possible for her and twenty other university journalism educators to spend a summer working as a journalist in a newsroom. After attending a five star, one week seminar that took place at the American Press Institute in Reston, Virginia, and also at both the Freedom Forum and USA Today towers in Washington, D.C., from June 4-9, Professor Strother-Adams arrived at the Rockford Register Star in Rockford, Illinois, on Monday, June 12 at 8:00 a.m. sharp, ready and eager to complete a six week residency that ended on Friday, June 21 at 5:30 p.m. The project, funded by the Knight Foundation, provided each participant a $5,000 stipend as well as all expense paid travel, room and board for the six week period. In addition, the Institute also paid hotel costs, travel and food for both the Institute and also for the debriefing, which took place in San Francisco, California, from July 31- August 31. At the R-Star, Professor Strother-Adams was introduced to a welcoming staff and a not so welcoming complicated online spread sheet where she would deposit all of her news stories. She quickly learned that today's reporters must be ready to write for newspapers, online and broadcast.

In addition at the Star as is true at many other newspapers, reporters often find themselves reporting their stories on the six and ten o'clock news. An NBC affiliate, for example, has a television studio that that is housed at the Star. The official term for this is media convergence. Professor Strother-Adams’ first assignment was to get to know the town. Like any reporter new to the scene, she was given several maps of the Rockford area. She visited museums, parks, shopping malls and even the Rockford airport. She attended daily planning meetings, where each section of the paper was graded and plans for the next day's paper were made. As a reporter, Professor Strother-Adams shadowed reporters and photographers all around the town. She wrote stories about the weather, a beekeeper, soccer, a singing seniors' chorus group and celebrations in the black community. She profiled a prominent African American female attorney and interviewed community people about their views as citizens of Rockford. In short, the Star prides itself on highlighting the local community. A Gannet-owned newspaper, the Star's main goal is to cover, in a fair and balanced way, the Rockford community, its surrounding area and many diverse people. Professor Strother-Adams’ work at the Star gave her renewed commitment to her craft as a journalism educator. The managing editor at the end shook her hand and said "Send me your best writers from Western." This rang in her ears as she returned to the classroom this fall. She told her news writing and reporting students that they have to be excellent writers and that there is no room for incompetence in the real world of news writing. She explained to them the importance of writing and re-writing to produce the best product in their work and in themselves. Finally, a highlight of this project is that Professor Strother-Adams has been asked to continue writing articles for the Star. One of its newest projects is a section called "Foundations," which is geared specifically toward the African American community. Presently, she is under assignment for this section. Jacque Wilson-Jordan

Jacque Wilson-Jordan's article, "Paint it Black: Teaching Hawthorne's 'Rappaccini's Daughter' as a Gothic," will appear in the Fall issue of Eureka Studies in the Teaching of Short Fiction. Goodbye to Linda Hess

After many years with the Department and a year in the Dean's office, Linda Hess retired this summer. For the short term, she plans to work on her scrap-booking hobby and to ready her house for sale, as she and her husband, Dave, plan to move to Florida in the future. At the retirement party given for her in the Dean's office, Linda showed an album of photos taken in the area where they hope to relocate. We wish her all the best for the future.

Staff News

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WELCOME Gee Min Glaue, Secretary Journalism and English Education

Gee Min grew up in Malaysia. In 2002, she came to WIU to further her study and graduated in 2005 with a BA degree in music. She is now a permanent resident of the USA and resides in Macomb, IL with her husband Russell. Gee Min started working as a part-time Secretary for the English and Journalism Department on August 1, 2006. Welcome Gee Min!!!

Haunted Simpkins? There are those who will tell you that Simpkins Hall

is home to three ghosts, one on the third floor and two on the ground floor. I don't disbelieve, having lived in two houses that I know were haunted, but I admit I have my doubts about the three Simpkins ghosts.

You see, I went to school here between 1960 and 1970. I graduated from the WIU Lab School, and during the time I was here, there were no ghosts. Little kids--and teenagers as well--love ghost stories; if there been Lab School ghosts the stories would have been all over school and there would have been plenty of pranks as students tried to scare each other. When I was a student here, there were no ghost stories in circulation. My sister and two brothers all attended the Lab School for various lengths of time, and they don't remember any stories of ghosts in Simpkins either.

The first I ever heard of Simpkins' best-known ghost, Harold, was in the mid-1980s, not long after I returned to WIU to work in the Department of English & Journalism. I believe he made his first appearance in a book entitled Haunted Heartland (Beth Scott and Michael Norton, Warner Books, 1985). My theory is that someone contacted by one of the book's researchers invented a ghost on the spur of the moment. Harold is said to be a graduate student who died in Simpkins, which places his advent between 1970 and the publication of the book, since Simpkins didn't become "the English building" until the old Lab School moved down into Horrabin Hall in 1969. However, my father taught at WIU until 1983 and one of my friends earned her BA ('74) and MA ('76) in English here, and neither of them ever mentioned the death of a student in Simpkins during this period. The most recent evolution in Harold's history is that he was once a Simpkins Hall janitor. I first encountered this version only a few months ago, but it seems to have taken immediate root: this year a student reporter from the Courier asked about the ghost of the janitor.

Whatever his origin, Harold has taken on a life of his own over the years. He's said to hang out in Simpkins 343, the headquarters of the English GAs and TAs (once the high school study hall and location of school dances). Although a benign ghost, he's mischievous, and has been known to turn lights and computers on and off, open and close doors, and other such things that make a grad student's hair stand up at

2:00 a.m. Reports of encounters with Harold seem to wax and wane over the years. My youngest brother (Randy Hardin, BA '92, MA '95) was a TA here and, being a night person, spent a good deal of time alone at night in 343; he tells me he never had any Harold experiences, but I know other students who have. Some have held séances, and ghost hunters have investigated Simpkins 343. Harold encounters seem to have peaked between about 2001 and 2004 or 2005.

It was about this time that stories began to circulate about two ghosts on the ground floor. Originally, the ground floor of Simpkins housed the faculty lounge (025), the art room (027), the lunchroom (which also served as the "little gym") (002), the music room (001), the nurse's office (008-011 complex), a kindergarten home room (013-016), and a first grade home room (019-021). The two new ghosts (reports of which have only surfaced in the last few years to the best of my knowledge) are said to be a little boy who locks doors, and a little girl who follows people down the hall. I haven't spoken with anyone who's had an encounter with the little boy, but a couple of this year's grad students have told me about experiences with the little girl, and I know of a faculty member who encountered her one memorable weekend.

As the second-oldest building on campus, Simpkins has seen its share of human drama, but its history as I know it has been remarkably free of real tragedy. It doesn't seem to be the kind of building to spawn a ghost, nor does it have any feel to me beyond that of a kindly and rather tired old building that sometimes misses the feel of childish hands on its stair-rails and children's voices in its halls. Perhaps that's why, if they do exist, Harold and his child counterparts are, for the most part, harmless visitors from the Other World. …Judi Hardin

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